


Tesseract (Suite for piano, winds and strings)

by Veldeia



Series: Captain America/Iron Man Bingo 2015 [3]
Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Classical Music, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Alternate Universe - No Powers, Bisexual Tony Stark, Briefly referenced past substance abuse, Classical Music, Falling In Love, Fanart, First Dates, Gay Steve Rogers, Idiots in Love, M/M, POV Third Person Omniscient, Past Bucky Barnes/Steve Rogers, Pre-Serum Steve Rogers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-10-12
Updated: 2015-10-26
Packaged: 2018-04-26 02:40:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 10
Words: 21,007
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4986940
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Veldeia/pseuds/Veldeia
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Nick Fury, conductor and artistic director of a major music festival, brings together an unusual ensemble of talented musicians headed by the violin virtuoso Steve Rogers and the world-class piano soloist Tony Stark, to tackle a challenging work by a little-known Norwegian composer. (A non-powered AU with the Avengers as a chamber music ensemble.)</p><p>Fill for my bingo prompt "writing format: omniscient narrator".</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. I. Preludium (Andantino)

**Author's Note:**

> I wrote something totally different for a change! Here's a classical music themed, non-powered AU that's pretty much just drama, romance and rehearsals. Because seriously, the Avengers totally are a chamber music ensemble. The story is finished (8 chapters / around 20k words), but as per usual, I'll be doing some tweaking and posting it one chapter at a time.
> 
> Beta'd by the awesome (and friendly!) imafriendlydalek ([tumblr](http://imafriendlydalek.tumblr.com) / [AO3](http://archiveofourown.org/users/imafriendlydalek/pseuds/imafriendlydalek/works)), who assured me this should be readable even if you're not a classical music geek. :)

"Nick, Nick, Nick. You know I don't do chamber music. Haven't done in years. You want me to play a concerto or a solo recital at your little festival, fine, but sextet? Nope. Not going to happen."

Tony Stark, labeled one of the greatest concert pianists of his generation by critics around the world, wasn't the least bit interested in Nick Fury's suggestion. He had never been a team player, that was what people had been telling him all his life, and he'd freely admit it himself. He was no good at following others, let alone adjusting his own interpretation to reach a consensus with the other players in an ensemble. 

Nick Fury had not expected this to be easy. Besides being very talented, Stark was a notoriously difficult person to handle. But as a conductor with a long and colorful career, as well as the artistic director of the Society for Creative Undertakings of Dancers and Orchestras (commonly known as SCUDO), Nick was used to dealing with challenging personalities. He wouldn't have contacted Stark without a few tricks up his sleeve.

"Stark, I'll be honest with you: we need you for this," Nick said, his good eye fixed on Stark as steadily as the purposely mismatched glass one. "I know you're not familiar with Laufeyson's work, but you know I'm not one to exaggerate, and there are few composers, living or dead, whose material is as challenging as his. We need a pianist who has plenty of experience with contemporary music and who can play stuff others would call impossible."

Tony offered Nick one of his winning smiles. "Very clever. Good strategy, I'm suitably flattered. The answer is still no. You should ask Reed Richards, he's got the reach and the flexibility for those impossible chords. Have you seen his hands? Rachmaninoff’s got nothing on him."

"He's out of the country during the festival, touring with his quartet."

"So, you've already asked him, before you asked me? Admitting that is not a good strategy. Now I'm offended."

"Note the words 'his quartet'? Unlike you, Reed doesn't categorically say no to chamber music. And yes, I've asked plenty of people before you. I've almost got the entire sextet, I only lack the pianist and the clarinetist."

"So, which sorry souls have you managed to trick into your superhero team?"

"I've got the composer's brother, Thor Odinson, on the horn – they're from Norway, and Thor is damn impressive. Big and loud, you'd like him. The viola and cello players are from SCUDO Philharmonic, Clint Barton and Natasha Romanov."

"Oh, her," Tony said. They had history – which Nick was perfectly aware of, because it was mostly due to him.

"She's the best we've got."

"That she is, I'm sure. So, who's the violinist, if not someone from your band?"

"That would be one Steven Rogers, formerly of the NY Phil."

"Rogers?" Tony repeated disbelievingly. "Isn't he supposed to be on indefinite hiatus? Frostbite to his hands, I seem to remember?"

Steve Rogers. The star pupil of the late, great Howard Stark. The wunderkind Tony's dad had adored, with whom Tony had never been able to compete. They hadn’t really known one another, had barely exchanged more than a few words, but Tony definitely knew of Steve, and had kept an eye on his career.

"Not anymore," Nick replied, quite pleased with the reaction he'd gotten from Tony. He had known Howard, and he was well aware of this particular chapter of past history as well. "He's making his comeback, with a bang. Playing the Tchaikovsky concerto with the S-Phil. This ensemble gig is just warm-up."

"Okay, I admit I wasn't expecting that."

"So, you might consider joining them after all?"

"Sure," Tony said, and made a very thoughtful face, with pursed lips and an exaggerated frown. "Okay, I've reconsidered. What do you know, the answer's still the same. I don't play well with others. I play even worse with others whose shadow I've been living in half my life. No, Nick. Very nice of you to ask, but no way in hell."

When Nick walked out of Tony's penthouse apartment a few minutes later, there was the slightest grin playing at the corners of his mouth. Although Stark had said no, Nick had seen how intrigued he'd been, and he knew Stark well enough to tell that he wouldn't need to ask anyone else. The ensemble had its pianist. Now, all he needed was a way to contact the elusive clarinetist Bruce Banner, who'd last been sighted playing in the street somewhere in India.


	2. II. Moderato, poco a poco accelerando

"Do you have any idea who the pianist is going to be?" Clint asked Natasha as they opened their cases, picked up their bows and rubbed rosin on the hairs. They’d done this hundreds if not thousands of times – they had played together not just in their day job in the S-Phil, but in countless smaller groups as well, from trios to chamber orchestras. This one was something special, though.

"I may have an inkling, but I don't want to spoil it,” Natasha answered. “You'll find out soon enough."

"How could it possibly be more surprising than who we've already got?" Clint motioned at the other end of the rehearsal hall where Steve Rogers was playing a slow scale on his violin. Not far from him, Bruce Banner was putting together his clarinet.

"This has to be the unlikeliest ensemble ever to play together. It's been years since either of those two has performed in public! How did you even convince Banner to join us?"

"You know I can be very persuasive," Natasha replied, with a smile that was both sweet and dangerous at the same time.

Bruce's hiatus had been a conscious choice. He'd been struggling with stage fright – although it was hard to imagine going by his gentle appearance, he had the habit of lapsing into a terribly aggressive way of playing when he got too nervous. Sometimes, the tone quality got so bad it almost hurt the listeners' ears. After several disastrous concerts and correspondingly devastating reviews, he'd decided he'd had enough, and left. He'd traveled the world, played on the streets, and he hadn’t had any problems. He had enjoyed it thoroughly, but sometimes, he'd missed home, and more than that, he’d missed playing with others. That, and the very persuasive call from Natasha, had eventually convinced him to come back.

Steve's three-year career break had not been by choice. After the skiing accident in the Alps that had left him with severe frostbite to his fingers and had cost him Bucky – the cellist James Barnes, his lover, partner and best friend – Steve hadn’t even been able to listen to any string instruments for months. It had simply been too painful. He hadn’t thought he’d ever play again, those days, but after a while, he’d come to think Bucky would’ve wanted him to continue.

It had been a long road to recovery. His doctor and his physical therapist had told him he might never completely regain the feeling in his fingers or reach the precision and finesse he’d used to have. But if there was one thing Steve had in abundance, that was patience. He’d practiced, practiced, and practiced, and slowly, he’d gone from scratchy, screechy sounds resembling a four-year-old’s first violin lessons to something closer to professional playing. He had taken up doing low-profile gigs: weddings, birthdays and business events, then substitute jobs for lesser-known orchestras. And finally he’d reached a level of skill and confidence where he was prepared to take up performing as a soloist again.

When the door to the hall opened, they all turned to look, expecting either the pianist or the horn player. The man who stepped through was neither – he was the composer Loki Laufeyson, a tall, slim figure in a tailored black suit and a green silk scarf, his long black hair slicked back. He took in the four musicians, raising his eyebrows in surprise.

“It’s three minutes past already, and there are only four of you,” Loki said, a hint of contempt in his voice. “Not very professional at all.”

Steve had stopped playing the minute Loki stepped in, and walked towards him, managing to look challenging despite his scraggy build. “I take it you’re Laufeyson, then? I’ll tell you something else that’s not professional: not sending the music in advance to the people who are supposed to be rehearsing it.”

“Ah, Steve Rogers. Pleasure to meet you.” Loki gave him a quick handshake. “Are you worried you can’t handle sight-reading it? I didn’t send it because it was not ready. Now it is. The question is, are you?”

Clint and Natasha exchanged amused glances as they approached the composer as well.

“That escalated quickly,” Clint noted, and offered his hand to Loki. “Clint Barton. Hi.”

“Ah, Mr. Barton, the fearless leader of the S-Phil viola section. And the lovely Miss Romanov, Russia’s greatest gift to cello music since Rostropovich,” Loki said, and instead of shaking Natasha’s hand, gave it a kiss.

“How charming,” Natasha replied, with a rather icy glare. “Is your plan just to stand there and mock us, or do you actually intend to give us our parts so we can get to work?”

“Work! This is not ‘work’, dearest Natasha! We are here to make art,” Loki declared. “Unique, ground-breaking art, which will be remembered for years to come, even if the mundane, unimaginative people living today are unable to appreciate it.”

Bruce had crossed the distance to them as well. “Sounds great, but before we get to that, we’ll need to hit the correct sounds in the correct order, at the correct time.” 

“You would know all about that, wouldn’t you, Banner,” Loki said, shook Bruce’s hand as well, and pushed a sheaf of sheet music towards him. “Very well, then. We can start without the two missing sheep. Knowing my brother, he has probably gotten lost in the corridors trying to find the correct hall. He’s not the sharpest pencil in the box. I do wonder about your pianist, though.”

Loki passed the parts to the other three musicians as well, and they spent a few minutes leafing through them. Even at a quick glance, it was obvious that the piece was going to be challenging: the music was littered with unusual symbols, quarter tones, constantly changing time signatures, and all sorts of non-standard markings.

The quartet had just finished tuning when the door opened again. The man who waltzed into the hall as if he owned the place was none other than Tony Stark. His face was familiar to everyone in the room – if not from meeting him in person, then from countless rave reviews, interviews, and the occasional tabloid story. There were few classical musicians who enjoyed as wide recognition as Tony, though it wasn’t all thanks to his skills as a pianist.

Natasha and Loki weren’t all that surprised, since both had already known that Fury had wanted to bring Tony into the ensemble. On the other hand, Bruce and Clint were openly amazed, and Steve looked as if he was about to fall off his chair.

“Mr. Stark. How kind of you to finally grace us with your presence,” Loki sneered from his seat, across from the musicians. “Too much of a superstar to appreciate the schedules of mere mortals?”

“And who are you supposed to be?” Tony said, giving Loki a perfectly laid-back unimpressed look. “Oh, right, the contemporary composer no one’s ever heard of who probably thinks they’re the next Beethoven.”

“Never Beethoven, dear me,” Loki replied. “Grieg, if you must. I am from Norway, after all. Loki Laufeyson.” He didn’t stand up, but shook Tony’s hand sitting down – a clear statement – and offered the thick volume containing the full score to Tony.

Tony didn’t even stop to study the score, but walked straight to the grand piano behind the semi-circle of the other players’ chairs. He wasn’t worried about whatever Loki had in store from them. He was confident he’d played enough contemporary pieces to face every trick a composer could possibly throw at musicians.

“Aren’t we one man short?” Tony asked as he adjusted his bench to the correct height. “That one man being Loki’s brother?”

“He’s running late, like someone else you might know,” Steve noted, trying to push aside the astonishment over the unexpected appearance of his late teacher’s son.

“Well, excuse me, Mr. Flawless, I happen to have other gigs besides this one,” Tony replied. “Just flew here from a rehearsal with the Boston Symphony, if you must know. Let’s get started, shall we, gentlemen, lady? The first page seems to be string-trio only.”

“Uh, which one of you two is actually going to be leading?” Bruce asked, looking from Tony to Steve.

“I am,” Steve said, while Tony said, “Me, obviously.”

“Oh boy, this is going to be a world of fun,” Clint mumbled.

Steve and Clint raised their violins, and Natasha put her left hand to the fingerboard and her bow to the strings of her cello. Steve made eye contact with both other string players before nodding to signal the first beat. The piece opened with a shrill, disharmonious cluster – double stops, _sul ponticello_ , most definitely not a chord on any recognizable scale.

Before they got any further than the first sound, a massive man with long, blond hair stormed into the hall, carrying a horn case.

“Apologies for my tardiness, friends,” Thor Odinson announced in his booming voice. “I was delayed since the taxi driver took me to the wrong address. I showed him the note you gave me, brother, so I don’t quite understand how that happened.”

Now that the entire ensemble was present, they could start playing in earnest. Since Loki hadn’t sent them the score in advance, the first read-through was bound to be a slog. The piece was titled “Tesseract”, and consisted of eight fairly short movements. Trying to wade through them was more like struggling to translate arcane hieroglyphs than making music, thanks to Loki’s copious use of non-standard markings.

“I think I need an Italian dictionary to understand my part. Or maybe a Norwegian one, I’m not even sure what language some of these words are,” a frustrated Clint groaned after the first movement.

“I can’t believe this, Fury put my masterpiece in the hands of bumbling _amateurs_ ,” Loki muttered from his seat, actually rolling his eyes. “If there’s something you don’t understand, ask me, that is why I’m here.”

The next time they would see Loki after this would be at the dress rehearsal, so they needed to make the most of it. They ended up spending as much time asking for clarifications as actually playing. What they did play was at best a rough approximation of what Loki had written, and gained them several snide comments from the composer, but the musicians restrained from getting themselves too worked up by that. This wasn’t a normal situation at all. It would be different once they’d actually had time to practice their parts.

They had another piece to rehearse as well, Dohnányi’s Sextet in C, composed in the 30’s. It would make up the first half of the concert, and it would’ve been the easier piece to start with. Thanks to Loki’s schedules, though, they’d had little choice but to do it the other way around. When the sextet had finished their grueling task and reached the loud and aggressive last note of the Tesseract suite, Loki bid them a mock-fond farewell, and they could move on to something a little less avant-garde.

After a short break, mostly spent on getting coffee and bonding over a mutual dislike of what they’d just been through, they moved on to the Dohnányi. Unlike for Loki’s piece, they had had their parts in advance, and had practiced them on their own.

The piece started with billowing arpeggios from Natasha, accompanied by a low chord from Tony. The others joined in, each on their turn, first Thor, then Bruce, Steve, and finally Clint.

Going on appearances, the musicians were as convincing as any ensemble could be. There was something of Paganini in Steve: a scrawny man who played with uncanny intensity, the tone of his violin ranging from devilish to angelical as required, but never veering towards ugly. Next to him, Clint seemed more ordinary, a man doing his job, but doing it exceptionally well – he hit every note with perfect accuracy. In the middle of the semi-circle sat Natasha, whose playing seemed very emotional and expressive, although anyone who knew her could have told that it was calculated and for show, even in a rehearsal with no audience. Thor, to her right, had an enthusiastic, primal energy to him, as if he were playing some ancient war-horn. Bruce was quite the opposite, calm and collected with his clarinet, like a scholar, considering and studying each single sound. And behind the five others, at his piano, was Tony, a slight smirk constantly on his lips. He managed to make even the most difficult passages appear effortless, and kept a precise tempo as flawlessly as a metronome even with varying patterns of sixteenth-notes and triplets.

As individuals, they were an exceptionally talented group. As an ensemble, they were a disaster.

Less than halfway through the first movement, Steve had had enough. He stopped playing. “Okay, guys, wait. Stop. We can do better than this.”

Clint, Natasha and Bruce followed his lead immediately, Thor blew another loud note before realizing he was supposed to stop, and Tony took the last word with a _glissando_ that was definitely not in the score.

“I get that everyone is still a little stuck to their parts because it’s the first time we’re playing the piece, but we’re never going to sound like an ensemble if we don’t put some effort into playing together,” Steve said. “Clint, I know you’re perfectly pitch accurate, but that doesn’t help if it doesn’t match what others are doing."

"Aye aye, Captain," Clint quipped.

"Same for you, Tony, your timing is impeccable, but if someone else has the foreground, you need to follow them, okay?”

“No, they should follow me. You said it yourself, I’m precisely on time. Anyone who isn’t keeping up is late, anyone who’s faster is rushing, simple as that,” Tony stated, giving Steve an almost hostile glare.

“You’ve got to give them some room to maneuver,” Steve said, not the least bit intimidated or impressed by Tony. “I can’t believe I even have to tell you this, it’s chamber music 101! You’re supposed to be such a great pianist, but I’m starting to wonder whether you’re just riding on your dad’s coattails.”

“Me? Look who’s talking!” Tony said, definitely hostile now. “My dad didn’t even play the piano. If I’m riding on anyone’s coattails, that would be my mother. You’re the one who would be nothing without my dad.”

“Yeah, he was a great teacher, and I’m grateful for that.”

Steve was doing his best not to get riled up, but he did feel annoyed at Tony. He had expected something a little different from the pianist – a haughty, cool and professional bearing, not a defensive attitude like this.

“Just look at the score about ten bars before we stopped,” Steve said, trying to steer them back towards actually doing something productive. “That’s obviously Natasha’s solo. If she wants to take some time, you need to let her. We could all improve on the timing, overall. Bruce, you were definitely lagging a little, and Thor, you were a little too eager with the eighths.”

“And I could name at least five places where you were a little off yourself,” Tony noted.

Tony wouldn’t admit it to anyone, but he was the tiniest bit embarrassed. He knew he wasn’t the greatest chamber musician, but he wasn’t quite this bad. It was just that Steve Rogers was seriously confusing him. He had walked in thinking he’d be annoyed. What he hadn’t been prepared for were those beautiful blue eyes and ridiculously long lashes, the way Steve’s long slender fingers danced along the fingerboard, and the flawless tone of his violin. He was fascinated, and he kept getting distracted. He was also appalled at the thought of Steve finding anything to complain about in his playing.

“All right, good,” Steve said, and picked up his pen. “Tell me what they are, so I’ll know to watch out for those. I may be a little rusty, I’m not going to deny that. I can take criticism, if it’s relevant and not just an attempt to deflate me.”

“I wouldn’t –“ Tony started.

Natasha cut Tony off before he could finish the sentence. “All right, boys, we get it, the rehearsal hall isn’t big enough for the both of you. So, how about you save the pissing contest for later, and we use the remaining hour on reading through this piece?”

“Excellent idea, colleague, I second that,” Clint said.

“Thirded,” Bruce said.

“Fourthed!” Thor declared. “Is this a word?”

“Okay, let’s start again from the top,” Steve agreed. “And this time, let’s at least try to pay attention to what everyone else is doing.”

Sometime during the second movement, an idea struck Steve. At first, it sounded preposterous even in his own head, but the more he thought about it, the more convinced he became that it was exactly what he needed to do. And he ended up missing an entrance because he was so preoccupied with it.

As soon as they’d played the last note, Clint suggested continuing in a bar, and the others were quick to agree, except for Tony.

“As much as I’d love that, I’m performing Proke’s third tomorrow in Boston, better not risk it. I’ll see you in a few days,” Tony said, taking everyone except Natasha by surprise. He put the scores in his stylish leather messenger bag and headed for the door.

Steve walked briskly after him, violin still in hand. “Tony, wait. Look. We didn’t quite start on the right foot here.”

“Yeah, you said it. I’m – well, I’m always a jerk, but not usually quite this bad. Sorry about that.”

“I’m sorry, too, I can admit I was a little antagonistic. But that’s not what I wanted to talk about. You know I’m going to play Tchaikovsky’s concerto with SCUDO Philharmonic a week after our ensemble gig?”

“Nick may have mentioned it. Good for you. That’s among the more challenging ones, right?”

“It is, and I’m kind of nervous about it. So, I was wondering, since my regular pianist is not available right now – is there any chance I could talk you into rehearsing it with me? Even once would be a great help.”

“Wait, what?” Tony said, eyebrows raised. “You want to practice with me?”

“Yeah, obviously I can’t afford to pay you, and I know it’s a lot to ask. I’m sure the piano score is easy enough for you that you don’t need to spend any extra time on it, I’d be perfectly happy with you sight-reading. Just want to get an idea of what it feels like with the accompaniment.“

“Okay, sure, I can do that,” Tony said, far quicker and with less coaxing than Steve had expected. “My place, the day after tomorrow okay for you?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Dohnányi's Sextet is an actual piece, and I like it a lot! There are several performances of it on youtube, in case anyone's interested. (And for the fellow classical music geeks, the sheet music is freely downloadable from [IMSLP](http://imslp.org/wiki/Sextet,_Op.37_\(Dohn%C3%A1nyi,_Ern%C5%91\))!)
> 
> Also, before anyone asks, yes, classical music is one of my dearest and oldest hobbies. :) Unfortunately I haven't really practiced it in an English-speaking context - so, if there are any weird mistakes related to musical things, they're more likely to be due to language issues than me not knowing what I'm talking about.


	3. III. Tempo di valse

Standing at the ornate doors to the Stark family penthouse in Midtown Manhattan, Steve was overcome with nostalgia. It had been over a decade since he'd last stood there, star-spangled violin case under arm, anxiously awaiting his violin lesson. Howard Stark had been a good teacher, and he'd never been mean to Steve, but he had always been stern, requiring nothing less than perfection. For his less talented pupils, he had been far less pleasant.

Howard had taken Steve under his wing when Steve had been twelve. Steve owed his entire career to Howard and to SCUDO, the cultural foundation now headed by Fury. SCUDO had offered him a scholarship that had covered his tuition – and the Starks had paid his medical bills. Not that they had ever talked about that, it had all been arranged between Maria Stark and Steve's mother, Sarah, but he had known, nevertheless. Without the financial support, he would never have become a professional musician, and he would've been far sicklier than he now was.

He was just as anxious now as he'd been all those years ago. He'd had several reasons for suggesting a duo rehearsal to Tony. First of all, he really did need to practice with a pianist. Secondly, he was hoping it would help with the dynamics of the ensemble if the two of them found some common ground. And finally, he thought he ought to know Tony better, considering how connected their lives already were.

Steve had been practicing the concerto like crazy, but it was more difficult than anything he'd played since the accident. He didn't like the idea of giving a bad impression to Tony, because what Tony thought about him actually mattered to him. He worried that this would end up being just like the ensemble rehearsal: that they wouldn't get along, and instead of improving the situation, it would make things worse.

Knowing full well that waiting wouldn't make him any less nervous, Steve rang the doorbell.

Tony had been expecting Steve all morning, every bit as anxious as Steve was, and partly for the same reasons. He imagined this was how people felt before a date – he didn't have a lot of experience on the topic, since his relationships rarely included a slow build with the traditional flowers, dinners and movies. Not that Tony thought it was a good analogy anyway. He was aware that Steve and the cellist Barnes had been an item, but that was entirely irrelevant. This was a professional meeting, just another rehearsal. Nevertheless, Tony had woken up earlier than usual, and had actually played through the piano reduction twice to make sure he'd do a good job. 

The moment the doorbell rang, Tony practically sprinted to the door.

"Afternoon," Tony greeted, managing to appear perfectly casual.

"Hi," Steve said, just a little timidly. "Jarvis not working here anymore?"

Steve had fond memories of the Starks' butler, who had always been there to let him in. Jarvis had been very British, all stiff upper lip, but still kind and funny in his own way.

"He passed away. Not too long after my folks," Tony said, looking down.

"Oh," Steve said, mortified at the bad start. "I had no idea, I'm so sorry."

"Well, it was a long time ago, and you couldn't have known. Do come in, Mr. Rogers," Tony pronounced the last sentence in a good approximation of Jarvis's accent, took a few steps backwards and gestured towards the hallway.

"It feels so strange to be here," Steve said as they walked towards the main salon. Tony – or his interior decorator – had completely modernized the decor, and all the furniture has been changed. The only thing that remained were some of the artworks that Steve remembered admiring. "I like what you've done with the place."

"It felt like I was still living at my parents’ place, so I had to change things around a little bit. The location is so great that I couldn't really think of selling or renting it. You still living in Brooklyn?"

"Yeah, not in the same apartment where I grew up, but not too far from it. Oh, wow," Steve breathed, as they stepped into the salon.

It was the biggest room of the residence, and the Starks had often arranged small concerts in it – you could easily fit an audience of 50 there. Back in the day, it had been an almost baroque affair, with dark wood, red velvet and candelabras. None of that remained anymore: the room seemed nearly twice as big, all white and gray, with a few touches of gold. The walls were covered with acoustic paneling. At center stage, surrounded by piles of haphazardly strewn sheet music, sat an ostentatious red and gold grand piano.

"What's with the color scheme?"

Tony shrugged. "I just wanted a splash of something that's not black or white, and that struck my fancy. Custom made by Steinway, of course, cost a fortune. But really, the showpiece here is the acoustics. Designed the setup myself." He spread his arms to indicate the room around them.

Steve put his case down on a nearby chair, took out his violin, and played a few arpeggios. Both men listened attentively as the sound reverberated in the room for several seconds before finally dying out. The echo was like that of a much larger hall, the difference like night and day to how Steve remembered the place. It had always felt like playing inside a felted slipper, especially with an audience damping the sound even further.

"This is the concert hall mode," Tony commented. "You can adjust it quite a bit, depending on what's needed. I usually prefer it a little drier, but I thought this would be appropriate for a violin concerto."

"Tony, this is incredible!" Steve exclaimed, awed, his raised voice echoing in the room. "I can't believe you get to practice here every day. You should see the broom closet where I usually play, there wouldn't even be enough room for your flashy grand in there."

"You could practice here sometimes," Tony said, taking even himself by surprise. "Not to be too upfront, of course. But you know, I'm not here all that much myself, almost never have time to stay for more than a few days in a row, and since you don't travel as much – you shouldn't need to practice in a closet."

"I think we'd better talk about it again after we're done. Maybe you won’t want me here after all," Steve said cautiously. "And so you don't get the wrong idea, it's not an actual closet. Just a very small room."

"Glad to hear you're not closeted. Is that why you're playing Tchaikovsky?" Tony quipped.

"Ha ha, very clever," Steve replied, slightly confused.

It very much felt like Tony was flirting with him, but that made no sense at all. As far as Steve knew, Tony wasn't gay – he was always posing with ladies in the tabloids – and whatever his preferences, surely Steve was as far from his type as you could possibly get? Tony was a really handsome guy, and constantly surrounded by other beautiful people, while Steve was well aware he wasn’t exactly male model material himself. 

"I do think about it sometimes when I play his music, you know," Steve added thoughtfully. "What it must've been like to be gay in his day and age."

"Poor old Pyotr Ilyich didn't have it easy, that's for sure," Tony said.

"Anyway, speaking of Tchaikovsky, how about playing some of his work?"

"Of course, that's why you're here," Tony said. He handed Steve a music stand from behind the grand piano, and sat down on his bench to give him the D-minor chord for tuning.

"How do you want to do this? Just play the whole thing through? Or in shorter sections?" Tony asked.

"Let's start from the top and see how it goes," Steve said. "I've been polishing specific bits so much that I'm worried I'm losing the big picture."

"I'm sure it's fine," Tony said. "Can you give me an idea of the tempo?"

Steve hummed the first few bars of the orchestral intro, and Tony nodded. "Okay, ready when you are."

"Go ahead," Steve said.

Tony started playing the simple and sweet first theme, and Steve took his position, violin raised. He had performed the piece with an orchestra several times in the past, before the accident. Though the piano reduction wasn't quite the same, he felt the familiar combination of nerves and excitement as soon as the intro began.

Any worry that he wouldn’t remember how to play the piece with accompaniment disappeared almost completely at his first entrance: it still felt so instinctive there was no way he could've missed it. The concern that they had both felt for potential trouble in playing together quickly proved to have been entirely unfounded as well.

Tony was amazed at how easy it was to follow Steve. After the slightly tense and forced first few dozen bars, everything Steve did was incredibly natural. There was never a sense of "the score says _rit_ so I will slow down here". Steve was truly living and feeling and breathing the music.

Steve could barely believe how well Tony was following every slight nuance of his interpretation. He didn’t seem like the same man who had given the ensemble so much trouble just a few days ago. Steve had definitely not been expecting to enjoy playing with him so much.

At the start of the cadenza, Steve stopped, let his hands down and shook them a little. "We can just skip to the next _tutti_ part," he suggested, thinking there would be no point in him wasting Tony’s time on an unaccompanied section.

"If you want to. I wouldn't mind listening to the cadenza, though," Tony said, actually sounding a little wistful.

Steve was surprised, but pleased as well. "Okay, I'll give it a go, then."

He raised his hands again, and dived into the virtuosic solo material.

Tony rested his hands on his lap and listened and watched, enjoying it thoroughly. He had heard Steve play many times when they'd been younger, and Steve had always been brilliant, but he had definitely matured since then. There was a depth to his playing that had been missing before. Tony had never believed in the tropes of suffering artists and art born of pain and loss, since his personal crises had never made him a better pianist, but maybe there was some truth to those after all, at least for some people.

Tony was so lost in marveling at Steve’s playing that it took him a few seconds to realize the cadenza was over. Steve had to wait on his trill for Tony to pick up the accompaniment again.

"Jesus, Steve," Tony exclaimed once they’d reached the end of the first movement. "How are you even real? That was incredible. Seriously. You know I only play with the best, but you're in your own league."

"Uh, thanks," Steve said, and not all the flush on his face was from intense playing. "I think you’re exaggerating a little, but thanks. You weren't too bad yourself. Some excellent ensemble playing there."

"You were remarkably clear with what you wanted," Tony said. "So, want to do something again, or should we move on?"

"Let's keep going, I want to get a feel of the whole thing first. The transition from the second movement to the third is _attacca_ , and I’d like to play it that way."

"And it's an orchestra solo. Okay. Is the metronome marking for the third movement about right? 152, if I remember correctly?"

"Wait, you've memorized the tempo markings? Have you actually been practicing this?"

"I may have,” Tony admitted sheepishly. “Anyway, what should it be?"

"Go for what's written, we'll see if I can keep up."

The second movement was slow, lyrical and beautiful, and the music flowed seamlessly, as if they had played it together a hundred times. As they approached the end of the movement, Steve's violin fell quiet, and Tony went on playing the role of the orchestra, building up the tension towards the end and then launching into the finale.

Following classical tradition, the third and final movement of the concerto was the fastest, a playful, lively piece. Steve had been rehearsing it at the written pace, and executed the quick twists and turns effortlessly, with flair.

They'd only made it through the first three pages of Tony's piano score when he felt a sudden, unexpected but all too familiar lurch in his chest.

Of all the possible times, Tony couldn't imagine a more frustrating one. He hadn't had an episode in weeks, so of course it had to be now that he was enjoying something more than he had in ages. He did his best to ignore the frantic pounding beneath his ribs, keep breathing steadily and focus on the music.

Steve didn't think anything of it when Tony hit a wrong key. Even the best made mistakes every now and then. But then it happened again, a major chord instead of a minor, a fourth instead of a fifth, half a missed bar – Steve stopped playing and turned to look at Tony.

Tony's fingers had frozen on the keyboard now, and he was hunched over, his face pinched. Something clearly wasn't right, but Steve had no idea what it might be.

"Tony? Are you okay?" he asked cautiously.

"Yeah, just give me a few," Tony replied in a strained voice.

"What's -" Steve began.

"It's, I've got this heart thing," Tony said vaguely. "And I may have forgotten to take my meds. It's fine, I think it's settling already, we can keep going."

Steve put his violin on a nearby chair and moved to stand by Tony's side. "No, absolutely not, and you obviously need your medication. I can get it, just tell me where."

"Kitchen, but we can both go since we've stopped playing anyway," Tony said, and made to get up. He was still a little woozy. When his knees sagged, Steve tried to step in for support, but Tony was significantly heavier than him, and they both ended up sitting on the floor, Steve's arm around Tony's back.

"Ah, shit, sorry," Tony said. "Really, I'm okay."

"Clearly, you’re not, and you don't need to apologize. I know exactly what it's like," Steve said.

"No, you don't," Tony said, suddenly sounding bitter. He shook Steve's hand off his shoulder and gave him a dark look.

Steve faced him with a frown, taken aback at Tony's mood shift. "Look, I don't know how much your folks told you, but you must have heard I wasn't the healthiest kid. My medical records are as thick as the combined scores of the Ring Cycle. Without your family paying my bills, I’m not sure I’d have lived to see my twentieth birthday."

"Yeah. There's just one major difference between us. You were unlucky. Bad genes, poor family, all that. You overcame it. Keep overcoming it, like that accident in the Alps. I, on the other hand, was born with all the proverbial spoons and stars, and I just fucked it all up. Drowned myself in booze and drugs and gave myself a heart attack in my thirties, and I’m still paying for that. Will be paying for that for the rest of my life, which I’ve probably knocked a few decades off of. So, thanks for the empathy, but really, you have no clue what it's like."

"I'm pretty sure alcoholism counts as bad genes, too," Steve said, _sotto voce_. "And you're still here, and one of the most accomplished and acclaimed pianists alive, so it's a bit rich to say you've fucked it all up. Come on." He stood up, and offered his hand to Tony. "Let's take a short break, get your meds, and then we can get back to the music."

Tony looked at Steve as if he’d just started singing like a castrato. “That’s it? You’re not going to wax poetic about me being an ungrateful bastard? Being unhappy with my life although I’ve got everything anyone can dream of?”

“Don’t like striking my enemies when they’re already down. Up you get, unless you can’t, in which case I’ll need better directions than just ‘kitchen’.”

“No, no, I’m good,” Tony said, grabbed Steve’s hand – just enough to hold it, not really to pull himself up, because that would’ve just brought Steve back to the floor again. He stood up, feeling a lot better already.

They walked through the spacious residence without another word.

In the ultra-modern kitchen, Tony went to a drawer and pulled out a pill dispenser. He stared at it mournfully. This wasn’t the first time he had forgotten a dose, but it had never actually caused him any problems before. He tried not to dwell on what that might mean.

“Definitely forgot to take them this morning," he told Steve. "It’s all about patterns. It’s the way my mind works – that’s how I memorize music, too. Pepper wasn’t here like she usually is, so it messed up the pattern and I just didn’t think about the whole thing.”

“Pepper? Your girlfriend?” Steve asked, finding himself just a little disappointed at the thought.

“Once upon a time. Nowadays, just my manager. Never get involved with your manager, that’s always a mistake.”

“Since Fury’s the closest thing to a manager I’ve got right now, I wouldn’t dream of it.”

“Are you actually seeing anyone, then?” Tony asked, not looking at Steve, busying himself with grabbing a glass of water and downing his pills.

“Not at the moment, no. There really hasn’t been anyone serious since what happened. It’s just, you know. Not easy to move on after something like that.”

Tony did his best to suppress the tiny spark of excitement he felt. It wasn’t difficult. Steve now knew what a wreck Tony was, and he was sure Steve wouldn’t be the least bit interested in anything but professional partnership.

“Would you like a coffee?” he changed the subject not too smoothly, walking over to the top-of-the-line coffee maker. “Or tea? Rooibos? Chai? Anything you fancy, I’ve probably got it.”

“Coffee’s fine,” Steve replied. “No sugar, dash of milk.”

They sat down at the nearby bar stools next to a high table, Steve with his regular cup of joe, Tony with what looked like a cappuccino.

“Not to be patronizing, but should you even be drinking coffee?” Steve asked.

“No. That’s why it’s decaf. You wouldn’t believe how healthy my diet is these days.”

They both sipped their drinks, looking thoughtfully past each other’s faces.

“Would you like to talk about it?” Steve suggested cautiously.

“Not really, but clearly, you do, so. It happened at a party, of course, about a year ago. Natasha was there – I found out later that Nick had asked her to keep an eye on me. She was the only one who wasn’t high, drunk, or both, and she called an ambulance and did CPR. I wouldn’t have made it without that. Woke up in the hospital and eventually decided I actually didn’t want to die, so here we are. Doing my best not to. Being the lucky bastard that I am, I managed to do myself some lasting damage, so I still get the occasional bout of arrhythmia. That’s just hilariously ironic, don’t you think?”

Impeccable rhythmic accuracy in his playing had always been Tony’s trademark feat, so Steve could see what he meant, although he couldn’t really say he found it funny. He was genuinely surprised about the whole thing. He had had no idea that Tony wasn’t actually living the sort of life the tabloids implied anymore.

“You know, what you said earlier about me overcoming things – that could’ve just as well been about you,” Steve said. “You’ve done the exact same thing. I’m amazed you don’t see it that way.”

Tony shrugged, staring at his empty cup. “Well, you’re you and I’m me, and it’s not the same.”

Steve was being so understanding it felt a little overwhelming to Tony. He was half afraid that if they kept going like this, he might start spilling his guts over everything, over how empty his life felt, how there was nothing in it except for the music, and how he sometimes wasn’t sure if that was enough. That could get awkward.

Tony stood up instead. “So, that was my story, for what it’s worth. How about we get back to something genuinely interesting and uplifting, like more Tchaikovsky?”

They spent another hour with the piece, playing through the third movement from start to finish, and working on specific sections that Steve felt uncertain about. They didn’t really talk about anything except the music for the rest of the time, though both men certainly felt there were many things that remained to be said.

Before Steve left, Tony handed him the keys, just in case he wanted to practice in the salon sometimes – and they settled on a time for another duo rehearsal.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Don't know if anyone shares the feeling, but I'm totally in love with the idea of Steve and Tony playing duets! :) It's obviously the classical music equivalent of them sparring.
> 
> The next couple of days will be really busy, but I'm hoping to get the next chapter posted on Sunday.


	4. IV. Andante risoluto

The Monday after Steve and Tony’s unexpectedly successful duet session, it was time for the sextet to meet again. This time, everyone was present on schedule, as was a seventh person, an official-looking man dressed in a simple suit. He waited until everyone was seated, and then walked up to them to introduce himself.

“Good day, all. Some of you already know me, but to those who don’t, nice to meet you. My name’s Phil Coulson. I work for SCUDO, and Fury asked me to lend you an ear.”

“What is this?” Thor grumbled. “Did my brother tell Nicholas we are so bad that we need a teacher?”

“Not at all, I’m not here to teach anyone. I will be around today and in the other two remaining rehearsals, to listen to the balance and give comments when you want them.”

“I take it that you’re a musician yourself then? What instrument?” Steve asked him.

“The guitar, actually, but I have a lot of experience in chamber music, so don’t worry about that. And may I say, it’s an honor to meet you, Mr. Rogers. I’ve been following your career since you were fifteen, and you’re a truly inspiring violinist.”

“Uh, thanks,” Steve said, feeling slightly uncomfortable for being singled out. “Mind you, all the musicians in this group are very talented. We’re quite an unusual ensemble.”

“I know. I’ve already worked with Miss Romanov, Mr. Barton and Mr. Stark. But, never mind me, I’ll take a seat over there, and you go on with the rehearsal. If you run into anything you’d like a second opinion on, just ask.”

They had decided to dedicate the entire second rehearsal to Loki’s Tesseract suite, since Dohnányi’s Sextet was so much simpler, and had already sounded decent by the end of their first session. At least now everyone had had time to practice on their own, so they shouldn’t need to put all their energy into reading what was on the page.

"I've been studying the score, and there's some interesting stuff going on there that’s really easy to miss," Bruce stated as everyone had taken their seats. Instead of the clarinet part, he had a photocopy of the entire score on his lap, and it was full of notes in fluorescent green marker.

"Hmm, what kind of stuff?" Tony said curiously, and walked closer to spy the marked score over Bruce's shoulder.

Bruce grabbed his pen and pointed at a highlighted bar at the beginning of the piece. "Here's a good example, see? The way Loki has written it is so obscure, it doesn't look like anything recognizable, but -"

"Oh, for crying out loud, I should’ve seen that," Tony exclaimed as the realization struck. “We should’ve all heard it, too.”

Thor, who sat next to Bruce, was craning his neck to see the score as well, but whatever the two men had spotted there was not at all clear to him.

"Care to share with the class?" Steve asked.

"It's a C minor chord, right there, in your third bar, it's just shifted up a quarter tone! You strings start with a dissonance that resolves to it," Tony explained.

Thor was still looking at the two men blankly. "The theory of music has never been among my strengths. Perhaps a clarification in plainer words?"

"In plain words, it's not some weird exotic harmony that no one can name," Bruce said. "It's an entirely normal harmonic progression, disguised by overly complex notation. The piece is crammed full of similar things."

Tony had returned to his bench and was leafing through his own copy of the score. "Yeah, you're right, why didn't I catch this? Just kill me now, seriously, there's a 5-6 sequence in the second movement, it's just spread out between different instruments and full of accidentals so you don't realize what it is, unless you look for it!"

"Oh, I missed that one," Bruce admitted.

"A Pachelbel sequence? Very funny, Loki," Natasha groaned, referring to a well-known piece featuring the harmonic sequence that cellists tended to hate with a passion.

"All right, great job, Bruce, this is clearly something that'll help us a lot if we can take it into account," Steve said. "So, let's get to work, and try to make that first C minor actually sound like what it is. It does say something about our playing last time that it didn't even sound anything like a minor chord." 

Last time, the first few bars had only sounded dissonant and ugly – they weren’t easy to tune correctly with all three string instruments playing two sounds at a time – but now that they knew what they were aiming for, despite the metallic effect of playing close to the bridge, the harmony in the third bar was recognizable. They went on, the winds and the piano joining what was more of a static mass of sound than anything with a melody.

To Phil, who was listening with a frown on his face, it almost brought to mind some of Ligeti’s work. It was a tonal landscape without a sense of tempo, and somehow it made him think of space, of galaxies and vast dark emptiness.

After a couple of dozen bars, Steve indicated at the others to stop. “Okay, that was so much better than last time that I can barely believe my ears,” he told the others. “Maybe there is a point to this after all. But now that we’ve got Phil here, better take advantage of that. Phil? How was the balance? Could you hear the strings after the others joined in? Was the piano too loud?”

Phil gave them the thumbs-up and an encouraging smile. “It was pretty good overall. Just take care where the clarinet joins in, the strings could be louder there, and the piano could tone it down a little.”

Everyone expected a comment from Tony, defending the importance of his accentuated clusters at the mentioned bars, but he just nodded, taking the feedback at face value.

“Great, let’s try it again and pay attention to that,” Steve said. “And we could maybe aim for an even quieter nuance overall, let’s keep it down until the start of the _crescendo_ in bar 15.”

They went on practicing the piece with particular focus on finding a good balance between the different instruments. It was challenging for such a mixed group – the piano and the winds could easily overpower the strings if they weren’t careful, since you could only play a violin, a viola or a cello so loud. Thor and Bruce also had an unfortunate tendency to feed each others’ bad habits: when Thor played something too loud, Bruce raised his volume to make sure he was heard, which meant Thor would play even louder as well. Phil proved to be a great help in fine-tuning the ensemble’s balance, since he had a very good ear for details. He also had the rare ability to give precise feedback without being too rude, but not sugarcoating it, either.

Out of the members of the ensemble, Tony and Bruce shared a fondness for theory and really getting to the nuts and bolts of what was going on in the music. They ended up guiding the rest of the rehearsal in that regard, although Steve was clearly in the lead. Him and Tony still sniped at one another quite a bit, but it was clearly different from last time, more good-natured, not so confrontational.

After an hour and a half, they’d made it through the first four movements with varying success – the first had been by far the easiest, while the fourth had given them a lot of trouble – and it was time for a break. Steve walked up to Phil to discuss a few details, Tony headed out of the room to make a phone call, and Clint instantly went to Natasha.

“Something’s clearly changed between the two of them, right?” Clint said to her in a low voice.

“That’s pretty obvious, yeah,” Natasha replied.

Bruce was hovering close by and had heard their words as well. “I noticed it, too, and I’m usually not great at this sort of thing,” he commented.

“Do you think they’re doing it?” Clint waggled his eyebrows suggestively. “Not that it’s any of my business, of course.”

“Clint, you’re such a gossip,” Natasha grinned. “Better not say that anywhere in public or the tabloids will be all over Steve.”

“Did I hear my name being mentioned?” Steve said, approaching them.

The three others put on innocent faces. “We were just saying you’re doing a really good job keeping Stark in check,” Bruce told him.

Steve was sure that hadn’t been what they’d been saying, and it only dawned on him then how differently he’d been behaving towards Tony compared to last time, not to mention how different Tony had been. Of course, this was exactly what he’d been hoping for when he’d set up the duo rehearsal with Tony, but he was starting to realize he might have gotten a little more than he’d bargained for. When they played, his gaze kept wandering to Tony even when there was no real reason for him to keep tabs on what the pianist was doing, just to admire the way Tony’s fingers flew across the keys, and the playful glint in his expressive brown eyes.

“I’m not really doing anything, I think he’s just remembered how to play in an ensemble,” Steve said.

The second half of the rehearsal went less smoothly than the first. The piece grew progressively more difficult towards the end. They sank into a deep concentration over the tricky music, now far more focused on hitting the right sounds with all the added performance markings than on what they sounded like as a whole. Even with all the helpful additional observations from Bruce and Tony about the simple harmonies that looked strange on page, they had trouble staying in tune, let alone on time, and there were even some entirely practical challenges in the music.

Thor despaired over the quarter tones, which he had actually never needed to play before.

Bruce just couldn’t bring a consistently good quality sound out of his clarinet with all the tricky fingerings, and kept producing ugly squeaks.

Natasha’s part had double stoppings that were right at the limits of what her fingers could reach, and were very easily flat because of that.

Clint knew he was not playing loud enough, but it was difficult to get anything more out of his viola while playing with a mute, as specified in his part.

Steve’s part often climbed to the very highest register that you could get out of a violin, and despite him having a very good ear, he wasn’t entirely sure he was playing the right sounds. Even if he was, they were probably sharp half of the time.

And Tony was frustrated to the point where he finally just broke out chuckling because of a ridiculous section where he needed to go from playing as usual to plucking the piano’s strings with his fingers, with barely a pause in between.

Phil, still sitting in his chair at the edge of the room, rested his chin on clasped hands, wondering what he could possibly say that would help the ensemble at all.

When they finally paused, Tony laughing out loud, they weren’t even in the same bar anymore, let alone on the same beat.

“Seriously, this is stupid,” Tony said bluntly. “What’s the point of writing something that’s pretty much physically impossible to play? Yeah, if I leap up like a jack-in-the-box, I can just reach the strings in time, but it will look idiotic, there’s inevitably going to be extra noise even if I don’t accidentally knock over my bench, and then I pluck a total of three notes and sit back down again?”

“Your part isn’t the only one that has issues like that,” Clint said. “With all the rapid switching between _pizzicato_ , _arco_ and _col legno_ in the string parts all through the piece, I’ll be amazed if none of us accidentally drops their bow during the performance.”

“Combined with all the quirky notation, it’s almost as if Loki has deliberately made the whole thing as difficult to play as possible,” Natasha noted.

“I feel like I need to apologize for my brother, because what you say might not be entirely wrong,” Thor said. “You see, we grew up together, but I was always more successful, and he has long carried a grudge towards me. By extension, he is not too fond of any musicians more successful than himself. He may well have wanted to take us all down a notch, to prove to us that we are not as perfect as we might think.”

“Wait, you’re saying he would purposefully write a piece so that we’d have trouble playing it? But he’s got to realize that if the performance is really bad, that won’t look good for him, either!” Steve said, perplexed. He always wanted to believe the best of people, and he couldn’t imagine a composer being that petty.

“That might not matter to him,” Thor replied. “He will tell the critics that they did not hear the piece as it was meant to be, because we butchered it with our inexpert playing. And do not get me wrong, he does wish to make great music. He considers everything he writes a masterpiece. However, he may have had these secondary objectives in his mind when he wrote this particular work.”

“So, if we suck, he can say the piece is great but we ruined it, and get his petty satisfaction from making us look bad. If we manage to play it well, then he gets the credit for composing such a great work of art. It’s a win-win scenario for him,” Tony said.

Phil had gotten up from his chair and walked closer to the ensemble. He stopped to stand in the middle of the semicircle of musicians like a conductor in front of an orchestra. “When Fury asked all of you to play this piece, he knew it was going to be difficult, to the point of being nearly impossible. He picked the six of you because he knew you were among the few musicians who might actually be able to handle it. And there are flashes of brilliance in there when you play.”

“Oh, spare us the false platitudes, Phil,” Tony groaned.

“You’ve worked with me before, Stark. You know I don’t deal in false platitudes,” Phil said sharply. “There are some unique colors in the piece if you get it just right, things I haven’t heard anywhere else. It might need a lot of work still, but you can make this a genuinely good concert.”

“Thank you, Phil. That’s exactly the attitude we need. We can make this work, if we want to,” Steve said, speaking with the same intensity that was always there when he played, something that tended to take people by surprise considering his small stature. “We can figure our way around the practical and technical challenges. If we just put our minds to it and work as a team, we can show to Loki that there is no piece that is too difficult for this ensemble to master. Now, let’s go again from bar 63.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter was a little heavier on the music theory, hopefully it wasn't too incomprehensible because of that.
> 
> Coming up next: Steve and Tony go on a date! Maybe. Kind of, sort of.


	5. V. Lento amoroso

This time, Steve and Tony were able to play through the entire violin concerto without any complications. As soon as they’d struck the final chords, Steve slightly flushed and out of breath after all the fervid sixteenth notes, Tony stood up and started clapping.

“See, this is how your audience will react once you’re done with your performance,” he said warmly. “I foresee a standing ovation. You’ll be walking back and forth between backstage and stage so many times you’ll wear holes in your shoes.”

“It’s not – there were a few double stoppings that weren’t quite in tune, it needs more work,” Steve said modestly. He was still concerned about many of the technical details.

“Well, you’ve got over a week left, that should be plenty of time for polishing any remaining rough spots. Anyway, you can definitely be sure you won’t have any problems with the orchestra, because you were dead on with every single entrance.”

“As good as you are, the piano isn’t an orchestra. It will be more difficult with them. But thanks, I do feel a lot more confident about it now.”

“When’s your first rehearsal with the S-Phil, anyway? Is Fury conducting the band himself?”

“He’s doing the concert, yes. I managed to talk them into giving me an extra rehearsal on the Tuesday before – they wouldn’t normally do that. Hill will be conducting it. Clint and Natasha will be there, too, of course, because they both play in the orchestra.”

“I don’t get why, though,” Tony said thoughtfully. “They’re clearly skilled enough to make a living playing just solo and chamber music, without the need to sit there trudging through the same stale symphonies all the time.”

“I know you don’t share the feeling, but some people actually prefer playing in a bigger group,” Steve said. “Besides, the steady income is a definite bonus. I’ve been talking with Fury about auditioning for the S-Phil, too, they’re going to be looking for a new concertmaster next season. If I should somehow survive this comeback thing, that is.”

“Steve, you worry about it too much,” Tony said, and placed a hand on Steve’s slim shoulder to give it a supportive squeeze. “You’re going to nail this. In all honesty, I’ve probably never been as well prepared for any gig as you are for this one.”

Steve could barely keep himself from starting at Tony’s touch – it was electrifying, and it felt incredibly good to have his unwavering trust. “I know, I know,” he said. “I’ve just been away from center stage for such a long time, it’s really intimidating.”

“It’s like riding a bike, it’ll come back to you when you’re there.”

“How do you know? The longest break you’ve ever taken can’t have been more than a month.”

“Three, actually,” Tony said. “Felt like a decade, but the moment I was sitting in front of the orchestra again, it was as if I’d never been away.”

“Well, three months is a lot less than three years, but it’s good to hear that. And to be honest with you, I’m not sure which I’m more worried about, my own gig or the ensemble’s, ” Steve said, and turned to walk across to where his violin case was.

“Tell me about it,” Tony said, following him. “The Dohnányi we could probably perform right away and it’d be okay, but Laufeyson’s mishmash of contemporary clichés, ugh.”

“Yeah, we have a lot of work left to do with the group tomorrow.” Steve had put his violin away, grabbed his case, and took a few steps towards the door. They were done playing, there really was no reason for him to linger, but Tony was giving him an odd look.

“Are you in a hurry?” Tony asked, aiming for a casual tone and failing spectacularly.

Tony was usually quite good at this sort of thing, but Steve somehow brought out the awkward teenager that Tony had never even been. He’d been thinking about this all morning – he’d almost driven Pepper crazy whining to her about how worried he was of the possibility of Steve turning him down. He was damn glad he’d remembered his pills today, because he was pretty sure his pulse sped up from _adagio_ to _allegro_ anyway as he waited for an answer.

“Not really, I thought you might be,” Steve said, aware that the air had suddenly gone tense. “Why?”

“I was just thinking, it’s lunchtime, how about we go grab something to eat?”

“Oh-okay, yeah, why not,” Steve stammered.

Steve was once again wondering what kind of a game Tony was playing at. On the other hand, he was happy enough about it that it didn’t really matter. He’d already been regretting that there obviously was no need for them to practice the Tchaikovsky together after this, because he had enjoyed it very much, and he definitely didn’t mind having another excuse to spend a little more time with Tony.

“Awesome, great,” Tony said, relaxing visibly. “I mean, I’m really hungry, so, really looking forward to lunch, that’s all. How do you feel about sushi?”

“Not a big fan, I’m kind of deadly allergic to shellfish. Among other things.”

Of course, Tony had made a list of several suitable restaurants to pick from, just in case. “Okay, seafood’s off the menu. Italian, then?”

“That’s okay.”

“Good, I know just the place, it’s not far. You can leave your violin here and pick it up after. What’s up with the stars and stripes on that thing, anyway?”

“Used to be my dad’s, he was a military musician,” Steve said as he put the case down again.

Still desperately trying to figure out what was going on, he followed Tony out of the room, into the elevator, and to the busy midday street.

The place where Tony took them was a small Italian restaurant just a few blocks away, very cozy and not too fancy, with less than ten tables. One of them was conveniently empty, though the rest of the place was packed.

Tony hadn’t actually made a reservation, he’d just asked nicely that if he should drop by with someone, he’d be forever grateful if there happened to be a table available.

Steve watched Tony very carefully as they took their seats. Tony clearly knew all the staff, and the way he talked to their waiter, an extremely cute red-haired guy probably a few years younger than Steve, could only be described as flirty. Steve had to remind himself this was how Tony operated. 

After they’d made their orders – chicken parm for Steve and a salad for Tony – and the waiter left them alone, Steve couldn’t keep his mouth shut anymore.

“Tony, what are we doing, really?”

“We’re having lunch. It’s lunchtime, that’s what people generally do this time of the day,” Tony replied, flustered. “Look, all the people around us are also having lunch, too, it’s perfectly normal.”

“That’s obviously not what I was asking.”

“Okay, well, then, I have no idea. I’ve been wondering the same thing. Maybe you can tell me?”

“Is this some kind of attempt to try to, I don’t know, work out unresolved issues between you and your dad by bonding with me?”

“What? No! Who would even think that? Okay, right, you just did, but seriously, that’s a very convoluted train of thought, and no, absolutely not, let’s leave my dad out of this, he’s done enough damage,” Tony said, tapping his fingers nervously against the table in front of him, as if he were playing. “Anyway, you’re the one who originally suggested that we play Tchaikovsky together, so actually you should answer the question.”

“Okay, I can do that. I genuinely needed to play it with accompaniment,” Steve said. “But yeah, it wasn’t the only reason. I wanted to get to know you a little better, because I didn’t really know you before, even though we have so much shared history.” He had also wanted to try and fix the dysfunctional dynamics of the ensemble, but Steve wasn’t going to say that out loud, because it would make him sound far more manipulative than he really was.

“Fair enough, that makes perfect sense,” Tony said, refusing to meet Steve’s eyes.

Clearly, Tony wasn’t going to make this easy for Steve, so he would just have to spell it out. “So, now you tell me, why did you ask me out today? Is this a date?”

“Would you like it to be?”

“Damn it, would you stop deflecting my questions?”

“You just did the same thing.”

“Tony…”

“Okay, okay. Uh, what was the question? Is this a date? I sincerely don’t know, I don’t usually do the whole dating thing. I think this kind of looks like a date, though, so if you don’t have anything against that, maybe we could call it one?”

“I…” Steve began, not quite sure what he was going to say.

If someone had asked him a week ago, before their first rehearsal, whether he’d go on a date with Tony Stark, he would’ve thought they were out of their mind. He hadn’t really known Tony, but he had assumed he had an accurate idea of what Tony was like. It had turned out he hadn’t. Instead, he seemed to keep finding new layers the more time they spent together, and he was eager to learn as much as he could.

“And of course you would have something against it,” Tony was already saying, his fingers now pressed flat against the table. “It was a stupid idea anyway, really, why the hell would you go on a date with your late teacher’s son who also happens to be a really obnoxious guy who gets all sorts of strange ideas –“

Steve leaned closer over the table and kissed Tony lightly on the cheek.

For once, Tony didn’t know what to say, and just stared at Steve, his eyes wide and mouth slightly open.

The waiter chose this exact moment to walk up to them and place their meals in front of them, but neither of them even looked at him. Tony made a dismissive gesture with one hand, and the redhead left them alone, smiling to himself.

“Ohh-kay, that was unexpected,” Tony finally said. “I didn’t think you’d be the sort of guy to kiss on the first date.”

"I'm not, but you just wouldn't stop talking! I didn't think you'd be so bad at reading people."

"Not people, just you! I was so sure you couldn't possibly be interested in me, I kept thinking you were humoring me because you're such a nice person, and that's just what you do."

"Tony, everyone who's got eyes is interested in you! I thought you were flirting with me because that's what _you_ always do, since I don't get why you'd be interested in me."

"Are you kidding me? Steve, I may be the guy everyone wants to sleep with, but you're the one everyone wants to marry."

"Huh, what? No, I'm not! Have you actually seen me?"

"Come on, the perfect, dependable, sincere man who's got this rare combination of inner strength and sensitivity, who's going to fight his way through everything life throws at him and inspire others to do the same, and who just happens to be as cute as a button on top of that?"

"I – really? That's how you see me?" Steve said, flabbergasted. "Not as this sad little guy who might just drop dead if you sneeze at him, who doesn't know anything but how to play the violin?"

"Well, you’re talking to this sad, not too tall guy with a heart condition who doesn't know anything but how to play the piano. It's a match made in Heaven."

Steve reached for Tony's hand, entirely forgetting the plate of food that was in front of him, and ended up planting his elbow on his chicken. Surprised and shocked by that, he went on to knock over Tony's glass.

"Oh shit, so sorry!" Steve swore.

Tony caught the glass before all the water had spilled on the table or on him. "No harm done, good thing I mostly just drink water these days," he said, grinning, and started wiping at his soaked sleeve with a napkin.

Steve picked up his own napkin to clean the cheese and grease off his elbow. "So much for the unparalleled dexterity of my bow arm," he said, and found himself smiling a little too.

"Good save. The conversation was heading towards sickly sweet, and we don’t need tooth rot on top of all those other health issues,” Tony quipped. "So. We've finally agreed that this is, indeed, a date. What happens now?"

"We should probably eat before I knock my plate to the floor, or yours," Steve suggested.

"Right, food, that’s a good idea," Tony said, grabbed a fork and stabbed absentmindedly at his salad.

They spent a few moments just eating in silence, neither of them really paying much attention to what the food tasted like, until Tony spoke up again.

“You know, about what you said earlier, I’m sure it’s not entirely true that playing the violin is the only thing you know. We do other things, too. We’re not just practicing twenty-four hours a day. You must be up to some other things in your free time, right?”

“Yeah, I do a lot of volunteer work, with veterans. Like I said, my dad was in the military, and I just have this feeling that I want to serve my country in whatever way I can, so that’s the closest thing I’ve got. You probably think that’s stupid, don’t you?”

“No, of course not! I think it’s adorable, really. Perfectly fits the image I already had of you.”

“What do you do, then? When you’re not at the piano?”

“Nothing as lofty as you, that’s for sure. I really like figuring out how things work. I’ve dabbled in architectural acoustics, like that paneling in the salon, and I spend a lot of time tinkering with high-end audio systems.”

“That’s not surprising at all, either, and I think it’s really impressive that you understand so much about that stuff.”

“It’s not all that complicated, really. Music theory is way more challenging, with more exceptions to the rules.”

They eventually finished their food, though it took quite a while, with the conversation flowing from the deep and thoughtful to flirty. It felt as though they’d known each other for much longer than just a week. Of course, that was true, in a way, because their pasts were so entwined.

When they were sipping their coffees, ominously close to the end of their lunch, Tony asked, "So, we’re done eating, what happens next?"

"Well, I'm an old-fashioned kinda guy,” Steve replied, “So I expect we'll walk back to your place, I'll pick up my violin, maybe kiss you on the cheek again, and then I go home.”

“And after that?”

“After that, if we survive the next two days and it still feels like a good idea, maybe we could consider a second date."

As it happened, what Steve had described was exactly what they ended up doing, only with a little more kissing, _molto appassionato_.

It started with Steve giving Tony a quick peck on the cheek when they were at the door, with Steve already on his way out. When he was pulling away, Tony put a hand to the back of his neck to keep him close, and brought their lips together. He did it slowly and gently, giving Steve every chance to stop it if he wanted to. Instead, Steve leaned into it. He would’ve put both arms around Tony, but he was holding the violin case, so he had to settle for just one.

They could both taste the garlic from the lunch they’d had, which wasn’t exactly romantic. Steve’s lips were chapped, and Tony’s mustache scratchy. Nevertheless, it was flawless – like that feeling when after hours or days of practicing a difficult passage, you finally get it just right.

When they pulled apart, Steve placed his hand on Tony’s cheek and looked him in the eye. “I’ll see you tomorrow,” Steve said.

“Yeah. Looking forward to that,” Tony said.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Soooo, I've written kisses and even sex scenes before, but I this was the first time I've actually written these two dweebs on anything even resembling a date. I'm almost as nervous about that as I would be about being on a date myself. Feedback would be much appreciated! :)


	6. VI. Allegro con fuoco

One date was much too early into the potential relationship for Steve and Tony to make it public, even to the members of the ensemble. So, out of unspoken agreement, when they met in the rehearsal hall, they tried to behave as if nothing had changed. It was just a little challenging for both. Steve’s mind kept wandering to what it had felt like to kiss Tony, the scratch of his goatee against Steve’s smooth skin, the teasing way he’d caught Steve’s lip between his teeth. Tony’s thoughts were straying a little closer to the gutter already, wondering what Steve would look like without the blue plaid shirt and jeans he was wearing.

Once they delved into the music again, though, it was easy to forget about everything else. After this, all they had left was tomorrow’s dress rehearsal, mere hours before the concert. They wouldn’t have enough time to focus on details then, it would be more about testing the acoustics of the concert hall and making last-minute tweaks, which meant that today’s penultimate rehearsal was crucial for their success.

They started with the Dohnányi this time, and it was all right. The ensemble’s playing had definitely improved since the first time they’d played the piece. Tony was as attentive to others as he’d been to Steve when they’d been playing Tchaikovsky together, following the others carefully. Clint tuned his sounds to whoever had the bassline, even if it required him to be ever so slightly sharp or flat instead of the actual correct pitch. Thor and Bruce both kept their volume in check.

“I don’t know why I thought I wouldn’t want to do this when Nick first asked me,” Tony said to the others during their break. “This is actually a lot of fun, and I’m not half bad at it, even if I do say so myself.”

“We’ve really come a long way in a short time,” Steve said, smiling, and cast Tony a conspiratorial glance. “As an ensemble, that is.”

The general good mood took a nosedive when they started rehearsing Loki’s Tesseract suite. The first to third movements weren’t too bad – the work they had done in the previous rehearsals had made a huge difference, bringing some sense into what had previously seemed like a disorganized chaos. That was still what the fourth movement seemed like, though.

“Look, I don’t think it even matters whether we’re perfectly on time,” Bruce noted after Steve had called it off at a general mess of overlapping complex rhythms. “The important thing is that no matter what it looks like, it should be enharmonic to a D major scale, with the exception of the piano. It really doesn’t come through that way.”

Phil was again present, sitting at his usual place, and raised his voice to back Bruce up. “I’ve got to agree with you, it doesn’t sound like anything recognizable. You clearly don’t have the same harmonies in mind, and you should. I realize it’s difficult to ignore the piano, but that’s what you need to do to get it right.”

“This once, I agree, you should just ignore whatever I’m doing,” Tony said. “I think the whole point here is the contrast between my D-flat major stuff and the D major that’s written as C-double-sharp major from the rest of you.”

The fifth movement was a catastrophe. Contrary to the fourth, they all had a lot to play, and most of it had very little in common, but every now and then, there were _unisono_ bars, where they were all supposed to come together and play the same thing at the same time - and every single time, one of them was off.

“I am deeply sorry,” Thor said the first time when he joined in a half note late.

“No matter, let’s try again,” Steve said, and they did.

This time, it was Natasha, who swore out loud in Russian, something she rarely did in rehearsals. Of course, she was rarely this badly off, either.

“That was rude,” Tony commented. He knew enough Russian to understand the words. “And it’s fine. Once more, from the same bar?”

Steve led the ensemble to give it another go. The third time was the charm, but thirty bars later, when there was another shared segment, Bruce was just a quarter note early.

“Damn it, it’s really not supposed to be this difficult. Sorry, guys.”

They made it through the movement, and played the whole thing again from the top, with better success. Still, none of them felt confident at all about it, and the remaining three movements weren’t going to be any easier.

The atmosphere had become highly-strung. They only had an hour left, and the piece was definitely not at a level where any of them would feel comfortable performing it.

Halfway through the sixth movement, after they’d had to re-do a particularly tricky section because Bruce had missed an entrance again, he just lost it. The others had never heard Bruce go off like this – his tone quality did sometimes suffer a little when he got into playing really loud, but this was much, much worse. It sounded as if someone had switched his clarinet for a car horn.

Bruce stopped playing and stood up, looking like he wanted to throw his instrument to the floor.

This was exactly what had happened to him before, on stage, and exactly why he’d been apprehensive about joining the ensemble in the first place. He had thought it would be easier playing in a sextet, a group large enough that it was almost like a small chamber orchestra, but here he was again.

He grabbed his sheet music from his stand. “I’m done with this. It’s not working, we can’t perform this. They’re going to laugh us off the stage.” Bruce walked away from the others, taking apart his clarinet, cleaning it and putting it in its case with shaking hands.

“Hey, it wasn’t all bad,” Tony tried. “It actually sort of worked, the way you played it. I think you should just stick to it, never mind if it sounds a little rough. It does say _furioso_ on your part.”

“That’s not even the least bit funny, Tony,” Bruce said darkly, and headed for the door.

“I didn’t mean it as a joke!” Tony shouted after him.

“Bruce, no, wait,” Steve called out, but the clarinetist had made up his mind. He didn’t even look back, just rushed out of the room, almost taking running steps.

“Shit, what do we do now?” Tony groaned disbelievingly.

Natasha had put her cello down and stood up. “I’m going after him. I’m the one who convinced him to join us in the first place, I might be able to talk him into staying, too.”

Once she’d gone after Bruce, there were only four musicians out of six left in the room. They were all stunned. This wasn’t something that happened, people walking out of a rehearsal the day before the performance. It wasn’t just unprofessional, it was unthinkable.

“Okay, he’ll probably just need some time to cool off. While we wait, there are still things we can do,” Steve said, doing his best to remain optimistic.

“Let’s try from bar 24,” Tony suggested. “The clarinet has a pause there, and Natasha and I both have the bassline, so it’s not that different without her.”

They tried to go on, focusing on sections where neither the cello nor the clarinet had a prominent role. There were plenty of those. One good thing about Loki’s music was that it didn’t favor any one instrument over the others; everyone had their soloistic moments. Nevertheless, this was no substitute for having the entire ensemble present.

Fifteen minutes later, there was still no sign of Bruce or Natasha, and the four remaining players kept having trouble staying in tune or on time.

“This is pointless!” Thor bellowed. “And it is all Loki’s fault, curse him and his vendetta against successful musicians! I am going to find my brother and tell him a few select words about this masterpiece of his.”

He leaped up from his chair, and went to grab his horn case.

“Thor! You can’t –“ Steve cried out. Again, it was no good. The Norwegian disappeared through the door, and he clearly had no intention of coming back.

“I’ll deal with this,” Phil said quickly, and ran after Thor.

There were only three of them left, and try as they might, it was a fact that rehearsing the piece with a trio consisting of the violin, the viola and the piano wasn’t going to make a dent in the issues they needed to fix.

Clint checked his phone, and noticed he’d received a text from Natasha, saying that she’d caught up with Bruce. “Ah, damn, doesn’t sound like Bruce is coming back today,” he told the others. “Nat says she might be able to convince him to show up tomorrow, though.”

“That’s better than nothing,” Steve said. “We’re not going to cancel this concert, if there’s any way we can prevent that.”

“I don’t see how we’re going to make this work, the whole thing is in a shambles,” Tony said.

“Not the whole thing,” Steve told him. “The first four movements weren’t too bad. Don’t be so pessimistic.”

“I’m being realistic. You’re being too optimistic,” Tony said.

“You’re the one who told me I worry too much the last time we met!” Steve exclaimed.

Clint wasn’t quite sure whether he was witnessing a lovers’ quarrel or possibly a planetary collision, but he was absolutely certain he’d rather be anywhere else right now. “I think I’ll just leave you two gentlemen to it,” he said, got up, and headed out of the room.

Steve and Tony were still sitting at their places, glaring at one another, when the door slammed closed after Clint. All the warm feelings they’d had at the beginning of the rehearsal had evaporated with the escalating situation.

“If you had kept your mouth shut when Bruce got all worked up, we might’ve been able to make him stay,” Steve said.

“I meant what I said to him!” Tony insisted. “It’s actually perfectly fine if that happens in the concert, we could use it as an effect. It’s not like the piece is otherwise all harmonious and pleasing to the ear.”

It was as if they’d been thrown back to day one. Steve was annoyed at Tony for being so thoughtless, and Tony couldn’t stand Steve criticizing him, so he turned all defensive. 

“I got your point and you’re not wrong,” Steve said, “but it still wasn’t the right thing to say at that moment.”

“As if anything you said was of any use, either.”

“At least I tried, and I’m still trying! You, on the other hand, are talking like you’d just like to call the whole thing off.”

“I never said that.”

“Not in so many words, but you might as well have.”

“Don’t start putting words in my mouth, Steve!”

“Wouldn’t dream of it. That’s your specialty anyway, knowing so well what others are going to say that you don’t even need to listen!”

Tony had stood up. He slung his bag over his shoulder and picked up the scores. “Well, I sure as hell don’t need to listen to this.”

And with that, Tony walked out of the rehearsal hall as well, leaving Steve alone, sitting at his place behind his music stand, violin in hand.

He could barely believe things had gone south like this, not after the date with Tony and the promising start of today’s rehearsal. They’d been doing so well. Even the Tesseract had started to sound and feel like it might actually work, and now this.

Steve wasn’t going to give up, he never did. He would do his damnedest to make the concert happen. Still, he could’ve done without all this stupid drama.

When Natasha showed up five minutes later to pick up her cello and other belongings, Steve still hadn’t moved from his chair, though he’d put his violin to the floor and his bow on the stand. He was resting his chin on his fist, staring at the far wall, but he turned to look at the sound of approaching footsteps.

“I saw Tony on his way out. It was bad, wasn’t it?” Natasha asked, and sat down on Clint’s chair, next to Steve.

“Yeah, bad might be an understatement,” Steve replied. “I’ve never been in a situation like this before. One day before the concert, and half the group just storms out of the room?”

“Well, none of us have ever played in an ensemble quite like this before,” Natasha said. “Or a piece like Loki’s.”

“I don’t think anyone ever has. How often is the whole point of a composition to be as difficult to play as possible?”

“It’s not the only point, though. It can still be a worthwhile piece if we can pull it off.”

“That’s true, and I still think we can do it, as long as everyone shows up tomorrow.”

“They will. Bruce said he will, at least, and I know Tony will, too,” Natasha said reassuringly. “He may be a little ticked off right now, but he’ll be there.”

“Let’s just hope Thor doesn’t actually punch his brother in the face so hard that Loki calls the whole thing off himself,” Steve said, only half jokingly.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Coming up next: ~~The final battle~~ Concert day!


	7. VII. Vivace – Presto

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I made a concert poster! Because I'm just a tiny bit obsessed with this AU.
> 
> Oh, and in case anyone's wondering why SHIELD's AU counterpart is called SCUDO, that's Italian for shield, since classical music terms tend to be in Italian.

  
  


  


* * *

  


**VII. Vivace – Presto**

Everyone did show up for the dress rehearsal the following day, even Loki. Thor was glaring daggers at his brother, who walked into the concert hall looking perfectly casual, and took a seat in the middle of the fifth row.

Bruce hadn’t slept very much last night, and it was evident on his face. Subdued, he apologized about the day before, and no one griped about it. They were nothing but supportive. Natasha’s smile was particularly encouraging.

Tony and Steve were doing their best to ignore each other. They’d deal with their personal crisis later, when there was no risk of that getting in the way of the performance.

Clint had been the least touched with yesterday’s troubles, but he couldn’t help being caught up in the general tense mood.

Everyone was there, more or less ready to roll, except for Phil.

“I was sure he’d be here,” Clint said, openly disappointed, as they were taking the their places on the Zankel Hall stage. “It’s the final rehearsal, he wouldn’t miss that. He’s been invaluable, plus he always brought us coffee. He should be here.”

“I’m afraid he was forbidden,” Thor said. He kept his voice lower than usual, so it wouldn’t carry to where Loki was sat. The others moved closer to hear him better.

“By whom?” Steve asked, though it was easy enough to guess.

“By my brother. You see, yesterday when I went to find Loki, and pulled him out of the string orchestra rehearsal he was overseeing, Coulson joined us, and he also had a few things to say to Loki about how he has written his piece. Loki couldn’t very well forbid me from being here today, but he could do that to Phil.”

“That’s just childish and stupid of him, Phil was helping us improve how we’re playing his work,” Steve said.

“Not surprising at all, though,” Natasha said.

“Not in the least,” Thor agreed.

“All the more reason for us to perform this thing so brilliantly that the bastard had no idea his music could sound so good,” Tony said, more serious and determined than in any of the previous rehearsals. “I’m not planning on giving him the satisfaction of seeing us fail.”

Speaking of the devil, Loki called out, “Are you going to spend the hour and a half gossiping? I didn’t come here to see a melodrama.”

“It’s two hours, actually, we’ve extended it because we need the extra time. And I think we all know why you’re here,” Steve replied, voice clear and steady. “You came to gloat. We’re not going to give you the pleasure. Let’s start from the sixth movement, we’ve still got a lot of work to do on the final three.”

They worked their way through the final three movements of the piece, not faultlessly, but far better than they’d done before. If Bruce played a couple of slightly harsh notes, if Thor missed an entrance by an eighth note, or if Steve’s highest notes were the tiniest bit sharp, no one cared. Most people in the audience probably wouldn't even notice such minor mistakes. Loki did, of course, and made his resentment known, but at this point, they simply ignored him. If the composer didn’t have any useful input, they were better off not listening to him, even if it was his piece they were working on.

The remaining time they spent on checking the beginnings and select sections of the rest of the concert program. By the end of the rehearsal, the musicians felt a little more at ease about the evening, although it would still be a far cry from a relaxed, run-of-the-mill gig.

Between the late-morning rehearsal and the concert at 7 PM, they had plenty of time for whatever pre-concert routines everyone happened to have.

Tony walked home – it was only a few blocks away – and divided his time between eating, doing some last minute run-throughs of the trickiest bits of the Tesseract suite, and changing into his tux. He found himself even less able to sit still than usual. He honestly couldn’t remember ever being this nervous before a concert, but then, this wasn’t the type of concert he usually played in. Just doing his part wouldn’t guarantee a good performance, he’d also need to match what everyone else was doing. And then there was the added dimension of him and Steve. He had no idea where they stood after yesterday, since they’d been avoiding each other so far. There would inevitably be some sort of a confrontation later on, though, and he was possibly more worried about that than the concert itself. 

Steve took the subway, as he always did, and went through his old ritual of playing scales. He found it meditative, just focusing on each single sound, keeping them as in tune and as good quality as was possible. It helped a little in soothing his anxiety over the evening. This was his first major concert after the hiatus, and he desperately wanted it to go well. As soon as he stopped playing, he ended up thinking about everything that could go wrong – maybe he’d fail at keeping the group together, so that they’d drift apart, or maybe the old pains in his fingers would flare up, and he’d not be able to do all the tricky double stops and fast runs – or maybe he’d not be able to settle his quarrel with Tony, and they’d never see each other again after the concert.

Tony headed back to Carnegie Hall with plenty of time to spare, and almost walked straight into Loki on his way to his dressing room.

“A little preoccupied, Mr. Stark?” Loki asked, a smug grin on his lips. “Could it be that the world’s number one pianist gets nerves from the work of some contemporary composer no one’s ever heard of?”

Although Tony felt like scowling and maybe throwing a punch at the scumbag of a composer, he arranged his face in an airy smile instead. “Me? I was just preoccupied thinking about the amazing response this concert’s going to get. See, it’s not just the world’s number one pianist on stage tonight, though that’s a great way to put it. There’s also your brother, who could probably wake the dead the way he plays that horn, and Steve, the most amazing virtuoso violinist you’ll see in your lifetime. Bruce, the clarinetist who’s brilliant at theory and really took apart all those Easter eggs in your piece. And Clint and Natasha, the section leaders of the best symphony orchestra in the country, if not in the world. We’re all determined to make this a night to remember. So, no, I’m not nervous. I know we’ll do a great job. And you should be rooting for us, because yeah, it’s your piece we’re playing!”

“Oh, I am, of course I am,” Loki said, unimpressed, his expression unchanged. “Nothing would please me more than hearing my Tesseract played as it was meant to be. Still, I am fully prepared for a sore disappointment based on the rehearsal I witnessed earlier today.”

“I really don’t get you,” Tony said, shaking his head. “But you know what? I don’t care. You could do with a course in basic notation, and probably a good shrink, but the piece you wrote isn’t half bad. This is going to be a good concert.”

The venue – Zankel Hall, the second largest stage at Carnegie - was full to the brim, sold out a day before. That had very little to do with it being the world premiere of Loki’s piece, and far more with the intriguing combination of musicians performing it.

Very few of the almost six-hundred-head audience had any clue of the turmoil the sextet had faced, and the ensemble seemed as confident as any group under the sun as they entered the stage. Most onlookers could appreciate how good they looked in their black ties: Tony, standing behind the others at the piano, all suave charm; Thor, tall and broad-shouldered; Bruce, like a charming professor, ever so slightly rumpled; Clint, a quirky smile on his lips; and finally Steve, maybe not conventionally handsome, yet attractive in his own way, almost angelic but for the determined fire in his eyes. Of course, the true eye-catcher was Natasha, in the middle of the semi-circle of four men, wearing a stunning black evening gown with a widely flared hem to accommodate for sitting with her cello, her fiery hair in an intricate up-do.

The six musicians bowed to the welcoming applause, and took their seats. After a quick check of the tuning, Tony and Natasha made eye contact and started the first tumultuous bars of Dohnányi's Sextet.

This was the piece they were all comfortable with, and it was a lot of fun to play. That was clear for the audience to see, as well, in the quick glances exchanged between players as the melodic line was passed from one instrument to the other. Despite them only having played together in a handful of rehearsals, they gave the impression of a group well etched together and familiar with each other’s styles.

The stormy first movement lead to the more laid-back second movement, followed by the third movement with its variations, and finally the playful and witty finale, well matched to the lively air of the group. Every promise given by the names on the concert poster was definitely fulfilled – this was an inspired and entertaining performance, and the first half of the concert gained them a round of eager applause.

When they'd retreated to the backstage for the short intermission, delighted by the successful performance, Tony unthinkingly went to grab Steve in a hug. It felt like the most natural thing in the world to him. When Steve froze at his touch, he realized maybe he shouldn't have, but then Steve relaxed and put his arms around Tony, too.

Once they'd let go, Tony gave Steve a slightly apologetic look. "Sorry, I was just – that was great, and you did such a excellent job!"

"It's fine," Steve replied quickly. "Took me by surprise, is all. It really was great, I'd honestly forgotten how amazing it feels! I knew we could do an okay performance of this, but it exceeded all my expectations. Thanks, everyone," he said, not just to Tony, but to the other musicians around them as well.

"Whatever happens with the Tesseract, I already consider this evening a major success," Bruce said, smiling more widely than the others had ever seen him.

"I have every confidence in us performing it brilliantly," Steve said, putting all the reassurance he could muster into his voice.

Despite the general feeling of satisfaction over the first half of the concert, every member of the ensemble still felt decidedly nervous about the second half. Walking back to the stage wasn't as much exciting as downright scary. They all had their particular, personal concerns about specific tricky sections, plus the shared worry over how the whole group was going to hold together.

The first movement with its evocative, timeless feel of space and emptiness was among the easiest, and it had come together nicely. Even Loki, who sat right next to Fury looking haughty as ever, was quite impressed.

The second movement started adding rhythmic elements to the mix, not quite steady enough to create anything that could be considered a tempo, let alone a melody line, but getting towards it, until in the third part, the violin and the horn took up a conversation in short themes. The others kept up an ethereal background, and occasionally joined in with short comments. The fourth movement followed, with its intricate polyrhythms and the mismatch of harmonies between the piano and everyone else. This time, they managed to make that work, too, the winds and strings exactly in tune.

They were halfway through, and so far, it had gone as well as anyone could've hoped for.

To the audience, the group on stage seemed very different from the playful, smiling sextet of before the intermission. All the musicians were deep in concentration, there were frowns and mouths pursed in tight lines, and all the cues to coordinate entrances were dead serious. Even Tony had lost the carefree air that he'd normally project when playing the most challenging works of the solo piano repertoire.

The fifth movement was the first trial, with the _unisono_ sections breaking through a general chaos. They were all so focused on getting them just right that the overall intensity and volume of the chaotic parts perhaps suffered a little, but they got it, they hit every single shared segment spot on.

During the short page-turning break before the sixth movement, everyone's thoughts strayed to Bruce, since this was where he’d walked out yesterday. But he wasn't the first one to get into trouble – it was Steve instead. The piece was full of rapid switching between different ways of holding the bow – from plucking the strings to hitting them with the wooden part – and like Clint had predicted might happen, Steve ended up dropping his bow. His hands simply weren’t as agile as they’d been before the accident, and he was starting to feel the strain of so many long days of intensive practicing.

Everyone maintained their professional cool, with barely a twitch on their faces to acknowledge their shock, though they all shared the feeling of near panic.

With quick reflexes, Steve managed to catch the bow right after it hit the floor. He nevertheless missed his next entrance because of it. With equally fast thinking, the other musicians stretched out their chord a little longer, so that Steve could catch up.

When Bruce’s difficult section arrived, he did slip a little, playing a few bars of truly ear-piercing wails, but just like Tony had said, instead of being a problem, it actually fit in. Bruce looked visibly horrified, but kept playing, and they made it to the end of the part without further mishaps. 

The seventh movement started well, but turned into a nightmare only ten bars in. Thor missed an entrance, and Natasha, who had been specifically waiting for his phrase, in turn missed hers as well. Both tried to pick up as best they could, but they ended up with mistakes piling up on one another, Clint missing his start, Bruce no longer sure when to play with Natasha’s bassline not quite right, and thanks to the constantly varying time signatures, they soon lost all sense of what even was the first beat of each bar.

Steve felt like someone had pulled the rug from under his feet, Bruce was an inch away from just stopping altogether and possibly running off the stage, and all Thor could think of was that he should’ve punched his brother while he was at it.

Without Tony, they might’ve been unable to find coherence again, just ending the movement in a cacophony, forced to start again from the beginning. Luckily, he had still retained an idea of where they were supposed to be. Though it wasn’t specified in the score, Tony started playing additional, crisp accents at the start of each bar. Steve caught on quickly and began giving cues to the others, and within another five bars, they had all pulled together.

They had averted a disaster by a very narrow margin, and most of the audience hadn't even noticed, since no one but Loki and Phil actually knew what it had been supposed to sound like. If they could navigate their way through the eighth movement, they would be in the clear.

The finale was a real struggle, a battle that had resisted all of Bruce and Tony’s careful analysis. It was full of rapid chromatic runs, through which each instrument tried to break out with soloistic material, almost like cries for help in the middle of the skirmish. Similarly to the previous movement, it was full of touch-and-go entrances, with zero room for errors.

Tony was so intensely focused on the tricky music that he only realized something was wrong when the dizziness hit him, bad enough that he nearly struck a random cluster of keys trying to keep his balance. Right away, he was painfully aware that his heart was going way too fast, close to the _presto_ tempo they were playing at, which just didn’t make any sense. Sure, he was more keyed up than he ever was on stage, but this definitely wasn’t normal, and he was almost a hundred percent sure that he had taken his medication today.

There were only a few lines left to go, and he was not going to stop, no matter what. He’d push through with sheer stubborn determination, if it were the last thing he ever did.

The last lines of Tony’s part were a sweeping scale running all across the keys, from the highest register to the low end. There was no way he was actually going to hit each of those notes; he could barely keep his eyes on the staves. Instead, he just smashed the keys and played a massive _glissando_ , giving a similar effect to what Loki had written, if not the exact correct sounds.

Everyone struck their final loud _sforzando_ , perfectly together.

They’d pulled it off, and though not flawless, it had been a decent performance.

The audience waited in complete silence for the last echo to die out – but it turned into a collective shocked intake of breath as Tony toppled off his bench.

The other musicians put down their instruments and rushed to the pianist’s side. Bruce got there in seconds, and just managed to prevent Tony from bashing his head to the floor.

Steve knelt next to Tony, who was now lying on the floor with his eyes closed, unconscious if not worse. Steve had thought the feeling when they'd almost fallen apart during the seventh movement had been bad, but it had been nothing compared to this. This was like being buried in snow all the way back, chilled to the bone.

He held a shaky hand over Tony’s face, and found he could feel air moving against it. "He's breathing, thank God. We need to get help, he's got a heart condition, this could be serious," he told the others hurriedly.

Bruce wasn't panicking like Steve. He reached for Tony's shoulder, shook him not too gently and shouted, "Hey, Tony, you still with us?”

Almost instantly, Tony's eyes opened, wide with surprise as he took in the five other members of the ensemble gathered around him. "What happened? Did we do it?"

“Damn right we did!” Steve told him. Then, feeling so incredibly relieved that he just completely forgot where they were, he bent closer, and kissed Tony on the lips.

“Okay, good, great, that’s awesome, uh, does this mean we’re okay again?” Tony said, no less baffled.

“I don’t know, are you actually okay?”

“I – yeah, I think I am,” Tony said, resting a hand on his chest. “For a while there, I was worried myself but yeah, better now. Hey, guys, we did it! We need to celebrate this! Any of you ever try shawarma?”

“Friends, we are still on stage,” Thor noted.

A moment later, a concertgoer who happened to be an MD had showed up, as had a member of the stage crew who asked whether they needed an ambulance. Tony waved both off, and he wasn’t even lying when he said he was feeling okay. He was a little shaken and unsettled, but really, he was better than okay. In spite of everything, they had played a very good concert – and Steve had gone and kissed him, on stage, in a concert hall packed full of people.


	8. VIII. Postludium (Adagietto)

The reviews were a mixed bunch, but mostly positive. The ensemble's performance of Dohnányi's Sextet was universally praised, while Loki's Tesseract was called evocative, but also blamed for trying too hard to be clever, and the way they'd played it was described as unpolished and rough by some, vibrant and ingenious by others.

A few stories of an entirely different kind were also published about the concert, by the tabloids. Someone had managed to get a grainy smartphone picture of Steve kissing Tony, and it was accompanied by a description of Tony's dramatic collapse and the unlikely Prince Charming who rode to his rescue – never mind that it had actually been Bruce who'd woken him up.

Tony had warned Steve that this might happen when they'd parted ways outside Tony's place after the relaxed evening the sextet had spent in the shawarma restaurant. Of course, Tony had also suggested that Steve would be more than welcome to come in, but Steve had refused, needing some time alone to properly sort out his thoughts. So, after Steve had implored for the umpteenth time that Tony really, really should get himself checked over, they had kissed good night and gone their separate ways.

Tony despised doctors and hospitals, and he had been avoiding his next follow-up appointment for over a month. But although he had not admitted it to anyone, he'd been genuinely frightened by what had happened. He really, really could’ve used some company the following night. He barely slept at all, hyper-aware and suspicious of every single heartbeat, afraid that he might not wake up in the morning at all. So, he did as Steve had insisted, and dragged his behind to the clinic the very next day.

That was probably a smart move, because it turned out to be potentially serious, not something he could just shrug off.

He was damn scared and worried, and he wanted to tell Steve. He knew Steve would show up to hold his hand if he did. He also knew Steve had a lot to deal with already, with the Tchaikovsky concerto gig coming up. He didn't want to add to the stress, and he was sure that if he actually met Steve, he wouldn’t be able to feign that everything was fine. Besides, they weren't exactly an item yet, all they'd had was one date and a few kisses, and Steve had turned him down the night after the concert. Tony had Pepper and Rhodey – fellow pianist and Tony’s best friend from his Juilliard days – to offer their support, which was plenty. He’d tell Steve later.

At first, Steve was annoyed when Tony kept declining his suggestions of another date, insisting that he was too busy. Steve called him a few times, and when Tony did answer, he seemed sort of preoccupied. Then, he stopped returning calls or replying to texts, and Steve went from annoyed to concerned. One moment, he wondered whether something he’d said or done had rubbed Tony the wrong way, the next, he was worried that something was seriously wrong with Tony, maybe he had had a heart attack and was just lying there alone, unable to call for help.

When someone finally picked up the phone, Steve was relieved, but it was Pepper instead of Tony. She repeated the same old excuses about Tony being too busy right now, but reassured Steve that he was all right. Steve didn’t feel entirely reassured.

Steve visited the Stark penthouse a couple of times, on the pretense of practicing in the salon. He failed to catch Tony. Not that it was unusual – this wasn’t even Tony’s only apartment, and he did travel a lot. Steve was still a little disappointed.

Of course, Steve didn’t spend all his time worrying about Tony. In fact, he spent far more time worrying about the approaching concert. Before the first rehearsal with SCUDO Philharmonic, he was so nervous he wanted to cancel the whole thing, but it got better when they actually started playing, and in the end, it went well. It helped that Natasha and Clint were there, sitting at the front desks and smiling encouragingly.

The big day arrived all too soon, and Steve still hadn’t heard from Tony. He had been so sure they’d meet at the concert that he was crestfallen Tony wouldn’t be coming.

The truth was, Tony wouldn’t have missed the concert for the world, and he was finally going to set things right with Steve.

When Steve got to his dressing room, there was a Post-it note waiting for him on the table. It was unsigned, and it simply said, “Don’t worry, I know you’ll nail it. See you after.”

There was no mistaking Tony’s handwriting, and all of a sudden, Steve was a thousand times more excited about the concert.

It had been easy enough for Tony to sneak into the backstage area to leave the note there. He knew his way around and all the crew knew recognized him. What was more challenging for him was to turn around and walk away, because he really wanted to see Steve there and then, but he didn’t want Steve to be all ruffled before his big performance.

Tony snuck back to the audience side of the building and joined the crowd, taking his place on the first tier.

The orchestra entered, looking as relaxed as they ever did as they settled on their seats, Natasha to the right of the podium, heading the cello section, and Clint close by, at the front desk of the violas. Once the orchestra had finished tuning, Fury and Steve made their entrance to enthusiastic applause. Fury was dressed in his trademark long black suit jacket and black dress shirt, going against the traditional dress code of tailcoats. Steve had opted for a blue dress shirt with black trousers.

Tony thought Steve looked at least ten inches taller than usual, walking to the stage with his head held high, and his face was positively radiant. He looked up, and for a passing second, Tony thought their eyes met, but that was ridiculous, there were way too many people in the hall for Steve to catch sight of him.

Steve walked to the stage feeling more confident than he would’ve thought possible. He was still anxious, of course, but that was normal, that was the way he was supposed to feel like – it was what gave the concert that extra edge over any rehearsal. He was finally back, and he knew the piece he was about to play inside and out. When he glanced at the audience, his eyes landed on Tony, just there, in the middle, on the first tier, and he thought that although the hall was packed, he’d really only be playing for one person tonight.

It felt a little odd to Tony, watching Steve play like this, from afar. Overall, his opinion was that the best way to listen to music was to actually be a part of it. But as listening to concerts went, there couldn’t have been a better one. Steve’s playing was, as always, exquisite, and he looked amazing as well, the way he seemed to live the music, going through the full emotional range from sad and thoughtful to the playfulness of the finale.

There was nothing but the music as Steve played. He didn’t think about the audience, he didn’t even think about Tony, he only thought about the melody he was playing and how it knit together with the orchestra, under Fury’s skillful direction.

When it ended, when Steve and the orchestra struck the last chords, he was taken aback that it was already over.

The audience went wild – there wasn’t a single soul in the room who hadn’t enjoyed the performance. Tony was clapping so hard his palms were stinging, and he was among the first to stand up. In no time at all, just as Tony had said on the day of their first date, all the listeners were getting up to show their appreciation, and there were shouts of “bravo!”, which Tony eagerly joined.

Walking to the stage to bow for the fourth time, Steve felt like his feet barely touched the ground. More than anything else, moments like this were what made this career so rewarding. All those years of working to re-train his frostbitten fingers, all the hours of practicing this particular piece, everything had lead to this, and it had been well worth it. It was a bittersweet feeling that it was now done, and the exact same performance would never happen again, no matter how many times he played the concerto, even if it was in the same hall and with the same orchestra.

After the fifth time, the audience let Steve retreat to the backstage for good, only to meet the long line of people who wanted to congratulate him after such a spectacular comeback. He shook hands and said thank you so many times it started to feel silly, and really, he just wanted to see Tony.

Tony waited for everyone else to have their turn at complimenting Steve, which again took a lot of self-restraint, because what he really wanted to do was to tackle-hug Steve in front of everyone.

By the time the queue had gone, the intermission was nearly over, and Steve retreated to his dressing room.

After the break, the S-Phil would be performing Tchaikovsky’s 4th symphony. Tony had heard it many times before, and though it would no doubt be excellent, he had no intention of going back to the hall for the second half. He slipped into Steve’s room, and closed the door.

The two men stared at each other as if they hadn’t seen one another in months.

Steve thought that he should’ve been angry at Tony for not keeping in touch, but really, he just felt overjoyed that Tony looked like he was okay – more than that, he looked gorgeous, wearing a ruby red dress shirt with his tailored suit, and the fondest smile Steve had ever seen on his lips.

Tony hadn’t known how Steve would react to seeing him, but this was the best he could’ve hoped for, the brightest of smiles lighting up Steve’s beautiful, delicate features, his eyes more vibrant than ever, matching the blue of his shirt.

“You were magnificent,” Tony announced when he found his voice again. He stepped closer to give Steve the crushing hug that was so long overdue.

Steve hugged Tony back just as tightly, burying his face in the crook of Tony’s neck.

“I’m so glad you’re here,” Steve said.

“Of course I am, there was no way in hell I was going to miss your concert, and you’ve no idea how much I’ve missed you,” Tony said to Steve’s ear.

Steve loosened his hold a little and leaned back, to lock his eyes with Tony’s. “If you missed me, why didn’t you answer me? I thought you didn’t want to see me!”

“I did, I really did, so badly, I just didn’t want to distract you before the gig.”

“What’s up? Something’s up, right? Are you okay?”

“We really shouldn’t be talking about me now. You’ve just played the most incredible comeback concert, we should be celebrating that. You. You’re the best, Steve. You’re amazing.”

Tony bent closer, and kissed Steve on the lips. Steve didn’t resist, he joined in eagerly, and for a while, both forgot all the things that had been running through their minds, thinking of nothing but lips and tongues.

When they pulled apart, flushed and grinning, Steve said, “Very good try, Tony, but I’m not going to let you off just like that. Come on. I need to know why.”

“Okay, I guess you do,” Tony said, the grin vanishing instantly. “So, yeah. Long story short, I had a doctor’s appointment, several, actually, and a couple of tests, and apparently my heart is even more messed up than I thought. The consensus seems to be that they’d like to put this device in me.”

“What, a pacemaker?”

“Not quite, an ICD, that’s –“

“An implantable defibrillator, yeah, I know.”

“You do? I didn’t even know that was a thing before they told me I might need one.”

“Told you I was a really sick kid. You spend as much time in the cardiology ward as I did back then, you learn a few things. I knew people who had one. It’s not a particularly big operation, I seem to remember.”

“Apparently not, but it’s still a little scary,” Tony said, looking more than just a little scared. “See why I didn’t want to talk to you before the gig?”

“Not really. You should’ve told me,” Steve said soberly, moving his hands to Tony’s arms. The look he was giving to Tony was stern, but there was warmth in it as well. “You don’t need to keep these things to yourself. Knowing about this wouldn’t have stopped me from doing a good job with the gig, and you probably would’ve felt better if you could’ve at least talked about it.”

“Yeah, but –“ Tony began.

“Can’t you imagine how I felt when you just stopped responding to my texts and calls? I thought you might have died! It would’ve been a lot less worrisome to actually know what was going on.”

“I didn’t realize that,” Tony said, eyes a little wider. “I thought you’d just assume I was being my usual selfish bastard self and ignoring you because of that, I had no idea you’d –“

“I wouldn’t assume that! I know you’re not a selfish bastard, no matter what the tabloids might say. You’ve just proven that yourself, trying to protect me, and it’s really sweet, but just all wrong. Promise me you won’t do that again,” Steve demanded, his fingers tightening around Tony’s biceps.

Tony took a deep breath and nodded slowly. “Okay, I can promise that, and I’m sorry. Upsetting you was the last thing I wanted.”

“As long as you don’t do it again, it’s fine,” Steve said, loosening his hold and running his fingers down Tony’s arms to grab his hands. “I want to know you, Tony Stark, and I want to know what’s going on with you, whether it’s good or bad.”

“The same to you,” Tony said, interlacing their fingers. “There’s so much I don’t know. I want to learn everything about you, Steve Rogers.”

Then, they were kissing again, pressed close together. It was tender at first, but crescendoed into something far more intense. They ended up against the dressing room table, bathed in the bright, warm glow of makeup lights, and there were hands roaming and finding their way under clothes to touch skin.

It certainly wasn’t something either of them had been planning on, but it just felt so right, the way they fit together, like two parts in the same composition, complementing one another. It was another duet they were playing together, both following each other’s cues perfectly.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The End!
> 
> But wait, there's a little more: Chapter 9 has the wonderful fanart I commissioned from Stitchy, and Chapter 10 is a list of links to youtube for the music that featured in this story.
> 
> This story included a lot of firsts for me:  
> -First time trying to write omniscient narrator (though it ended up mostly just switching between Steve and Tony's POVs)  
> -First time doing something so romantic  
> -First time writing a proper AU
> 
> So, I'd very much appreciate any comments, if you've made it this far :) Or, come say hi at [tumblr](http://veldeia.tumblr.com)!


	9. Art by Stitchy

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Lovely fanart by the awesome [Stitchy](http://stitchyarts.tumblr.com)!
> 
> (Seriously, it's impossible to look at that picture without smiling, they're just so cute! <3)


	10. Playlist

**Music featured in the story:**

(Most links go to youtube – these are by no means the only performances of the pieces, and I confess I haven’t listened to each and every version there is to pick the best ones, but at least these are OK!)

* [Prokofiev: Piano Concerto No. 3 in C major, Op. 26](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rRNP5n4aMBA)  
Mentioned briefly in Chapter 2, performed by Tony. I think Prokofiev is exactly the sort of quirky playful stuff that Tony would enjoy playing.

* [Tchaikovsky: Violin Concerto in D major, Op. 35](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-fCuMFGVwhc)  
Mentioned in several chapters, rehearsed by Tony & Steve in Chapters 3 and 5, performed by Steve in Chapter 8. One of the most beloved violin concertos, and a very challenging one, so I think it's a good fit for Steve.

* [Dohnányi: Sextet in in C major, Op. 37](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c0Io4rQYo7E)  
Mentioned all over the story, performed by the ensemble in Chapter 7. This is actually a rather rare combination of instruments that I just think fits the Avengers really well.

* **Laufeyson: Tesseract (Suite for piano, winds and strings)** , the titular composition mentioned all over the story, obviously isn’t a real piece. Some things that probably inspired Loki include [Ligeti’s Lontano](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bnZqZmcyvvI) and [Webern’s Concerto For Nine Instruments](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FkT-3Yh22PE). Also, his notation was definitely inspired by the works of [John Stump](http://socks-studio.com/2012/05/19/the-unplayable-score-faeries-aire-and-death-waltz-john-stump/) (as suggested by [Violaplayer](http://archiveofourown.org/users/Violaplayer/pseuds/Violaplayer)). The author was inspired by several tricky contemporary pieces she's played in her time, which shall remain unnamed - and to be clear on this, I've got nothing against contemporary composers, they're brilliant and talented people! It's just that sometimes the things they write can be a little challenging.


End file.
